HoneyChrome are certainly worthy of an award for one of the best band names in a long time. There is something very onomatopoeic about the contrasting images of warm organic nectar and polished industrial metal. Even if not intentional this cyborg description encapsulates their essence – an anarchy that evokes a certain poetry, an appearance of senile dementia that shrouds a very incisive mind.
You get the feeling they don’t want to be labelled and nor should they. Perhaps it’s time for a new genre – psychotic rock! This would be its flagship. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water along comes a great white with row upon row of razor sharp teeth just aching to rip apart the rule book and shred it into a new magical mystery tour. If David Bowie hadn’t retired into the well-deserved obscurity of New York book-shops then this is surely the kind of outfit he would be trumpeting with enthusiasm – people bold enough to cock a snook at the tried and tested and grasp the unknown tightly with eager hands.
HoneyChrome is a phrenetic neuron-sizzling sound world where people stick bare wires into their bathwater for a kick. It’s possible that when the switch is flicked on an electric chair there must be a brief instant when this is the kind of music you hear – one last glorious burst before oblivion. It’s a lot of noise for three guys but thanks to Matt, Stevie and Dan this experience is now available without drastic recourse to a death sentence. Lots of electronics, effects, execution. Lots of vigour, velocity, vitality. Someone turned the MRI scanner up to overload and smoking brains have come out the other side. If you were to chuck Andy Warhol, Stephen Hawking and Iggy Pop into a blender then this is the kind of cocktail you might get, a meltdown-punkadelic puree. Not so much new wave as new tsunami. These bitches are on heat.
The title track of the album Suicide Disco drops a hint, along with the likes of ‘Even if it’s wrong, come on’, ‘I think I love you’, and ‘Mind machine’. Those aren’t guitars; they must surely be chain-saws. Somewhere along the way contemporary music lost its excitement, but no-one noticed until HoneyChrome plugged in and switched on. Forget base-jumping or cave-diving. All you need do is listen to this for the same effect. It isn’t for the faint-hearted or those of a nervous disposition. If you didn’t have a twitch when you started listening to HoneyChrome then you certainly will by the end. You’ll be drained and drenched with sweat and steaming slightly and smiling sweetly.
Yet it’s not all subliminal insanity and experimentation in warp drive. There are the equivalents of slow numbers such as the musically and lyrically eloquent ‘Fractured days’. Most lyrics aren’t worth quoting these days but the odd simple nugget extols the beauty of the word in a simple couplet such as ‘I need more time to finish off this wine, I need more wine to finish off this time.
People used to use a ridiculous word like disestablishmentarianism for fun. At long last some new opponents of established order have pushed to the front of the queue and thrown down the gauntlet. They probably don’t even want to be at the vanguard as that would be too clear cut a role, so let them lead by example instead. Peel off the superficial layer of insurrection and these are three talented individuals fighting for attention in a world where attention has the life-span of a Higg’s Bosun. With luck and perspicacity they should thrive and permeate like dark energy itself. Anyway, they probably don’t even want to be analyzed, they just want to be experienced. So stop reading, and start listening.
Review by Peter Heydon
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